A Rich Full Death

23

‘Please forgive me!’ cried Browning, with a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘How often we used to play such pranks at Eton! Such jolly fun! Of course it would sometimes go too far. One fellow fell thirty feet into the quad. Landed on his head, luckily, so it didn’t do him any harm. He’s an eminent member of the Cabinet now.’

‘You were never at Eton,’ I returned coldly, when I could trust myself to speak. ‘You told me you had a private tutor.’

‘Did I? Did I? Well, well-I must have imagined it all. But why waste time here in one of the least conspicuous and attractive parts of the garden, when from the belvedere we may enjoy the fabled view as the sun sets? It is this way-but of course you know that!’

Thus burbling, thus chirruping, Browning led the way across the garden. It occurs to me now that I might have blown his head off there and then. But there was something so irresistibly easy and unsuspicious about his manner-whoever would have thought that such a man intended any harm?

The sun was by now low in the sky, bathing the fluted columns of the Classical summer-house in a warm pink glow. Before us stretched the famous prospect over the Arno valley, where little Florence lies dense and compact within its walls amid the isolated farmsteads and winding tracks of the plain. The belvedere itself was completely bare of furniture at that season-a mere empty shell. The only extraneous object stood near the foot of one of the columns. It was a large bucket, brim full of water; the well-bucket, in fact. For a moment I felt a stab of alarm. But what possible threat could a bucket of water, of all things, pose?

Browning turned to me.

‘Do you know why I have brought you here?’ he asked. ‘It is to hear my confession, before I do away with my worthless self. I have sinned greatly, Booth. I killed them all, of course. I admit it. That’s why I did not want the police involved. Yes, I duped you cruelly in more ways than one, I fear. I am the murderer we have sought for so long! Not only that-my poems are all written by my wife! I am a nothing! Worse than nothing: a dream, a nightmare …’

No, of course he did not say that. He did not say anything at all, in fact, but just stood there admiring the view, for all the world like a man without a thought on his mind or a care in the world.

‘Where is Beatrice?’ I demanded at last.

‘She is in a safe place, in good hands.’

‘What have you done with her?’

‘She is in the keeping of the sisters of the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena delle Convertite at Pistoia. They make a speciality of caring for fallen women.’

‘You sanctimonious bastard!’

I reached into my pocket-and Browning threw himself at me, like a football player. Taken utterly by surprise, I fell awkwardly, hurting the hip I had already bruised that morning and striking my head on the base of one of the pillars of the belvedere.

I have no notion how long I lay there on the marble, dazed from the blow. Then something struck me like a whiplash, and I sat up to find myself drenched in cold water. Browning stood over me, carefully shaking the last drops out of the bucket he had just emptied all over my recumbent form.

He produced a large revolver from his coat pocket.

‘I have this from Powers,’ he explained. ‘He is under the impression that I wish to shoot rabbits with it. I did not disabuse him, although I should not dream of doing anything of the sort. He mentioned that it was the product of a certain Colonel Cold or Colt-the name means nothing to me, but may perhaps to you. Apparently the shells it emits, being of an unsually large calibre, inflict such extensive damage to anything they strike that even a glancing wound is quite likely to prove fatal. I therefore advise you to make no rash movements.’

I listened in silence. The water ran down my neck and throat in little rivulets, and was soaking through the clothing on my chest and side, where it had already penetrated to the skin in several places.

‘Put your hand into your pocket and empty out everything in it,’ Browning went on. I did so, and my travelling-pistol fell to the floor with a clatter. Browning directed me to push it across towards him, and he picked it up and pocketed it.

‘As I was saying,’ he continued discursively, ‘Beatrice is in very good hands. It is true that she was somewhat unwilling to see reason at first. But when it was made clear to her that she had a choice between the convent and the police she came quietly enough.’

‘She has committed no crime,’ I croaked.

‘What!’ cried Browning. ‘A girl of nineteen who lies to her family, runs away from home, and allows herself to be maintained by a man-and a foreigner, at that! She would have been gaoled for five years at least. The convent is no luxury hotel, it is true, but it is a great deal better than a cell in the Murate.’

‘You blackguard!’ I spat out.

‘I-a blackguard!’ he replied indignantly. ‘I did not seduce the poor child! All I wished to do was to save her from abuse at the hands of her unspeakable father! This I did-and was scrupulously careful always to treat her with the greatest possible respect. It was you who brought about her ruin, Booth. You!’

‘She loved me! She told me so!’

‘Then you are the more culpable, in having exploited her tender emotions in order to gratify your own vile cravings.’

‘They were her cravings too.’

‘Enough!’ he almost screamed. ‘Do not provoke me with any more of these filthy insinuations! I will not be responsible for my actions! Why should I listen to your putrid drivel? You-who destroyed the purest and loveliest friendship of my life! You-who turned that sweet girl-child against me! You … You …’

Browning had been getting more and more excited as we spoke, until he burst out in one of those paroxysms of rage to which he is notoriously liable whenever one of his pet bugbears-spiritualism, or loose morals-is mentioned. Now, in the course of an expansive gesture illustrative of his utter contempt for me, the heavy revolver which he was holding slipped from his hand and went flying through the air. It struck a column, chipping the stone, and deflected to crash to the floor within easy reach of my hand.

For a moment neither of us moved, so stunningly sudden had been this reversal of fortunes. Then I quickly bent to grasp the weapon, and turned it on my adversary-who was staring at it in absolute horror, as though he had just witnessed something impossible.

Slowly, painfully, carefully, I got to my knees, and then stood up.

‘So, Mr Browning! “God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world”, eh? Are you still so very sure of that? No second thoughts? All’s still for the best, is it?’

To do him justice, he returned my stare unflinchingly.

‘You have the advantage now, Mr Booth,’ he replied. ‘Very well-use it! Add me to your list of victims. But do not presume to mock my beliefs.’

‘Ah, so you had guessed my little secret! I thought so. You should not have put my knife and life-preserver on Petacco’s body, or my watch on the wrong landing-that rather gave the game away.’

‘On the contrary,’ replied Browning, with a contemptuous laugh, ‘that was the whole point! You haven’t been so clever after all-only lucky. My “game”, as you call it, was a test, carefully calculated to appeal to a mind like yours, to prove that my suspicions about you were correct. Who but the murderer would have thought of looking for his murder weapons at the spot where his accomplice got his reward-the accomplice who had sported in jester’s motley on Via Tornabuoni to give you the perfect alibi while the real Grant lay already dead in the vat of pitch? I checked with the shop that made up Grant’s costume, and they confirmed that a man answering your description had ordered an identical one in a slightly different size that same afternoon.

‘Who but Edith Chauncey’s killer would dream of looking for his watch on the landing above her suite-the landing where he had hidden while the maid ran for help that morning? Since no one could have got into the suite that night I knew the murderer must have been there all along-and who more likely than the man who left first, his departure almost unnoticed by the others?

‘But the clinching proof was the third-have you noticed how everything in this affair seems to go by threes? I wonder how many visitors to this villa have any notion of the existence of a well in the garden, let alone its exact location. But you knew, just as you knew where to find the key which opens the garden gate. And that proved what I suspected: that you were Isabel Eakin’s secret lover, who murdered her on this spot one month ago, and then wet the body with water from the well-which is where you found the rope too, of course-to make it seem your mistress had died hours before, while it was still light and you were dining with Mr Jarves.’

‘She was your mistress too, God rol you!’ I cried furiously. ‘Talenti told me everything!’

Then he told you nothing but the lies I made up on the spot to conceal my friendship with Beatrice, which I feareti might have been misconstrued and rebounded on her, poor child. That was why she summoned me here that night, you fool! I never knew Isabel Eakin-never met her or her husband!’

‘That’s not what Talenti believes, and he is no fool!’

‘He may not have been a fool,’ Browning retorted, ‘but he allowed his hatred of me-a hatred I do not know what I had done to deserve-to blind him to the truth.’

‘Why do you speak of him in the past? Is he dead?’

‘In a sense. Certain of my friends here, appalled by his treatment of me, made representations to the Grand Duke. As a result, Commissioner Talenti has been transferred to Grosseto.’

It was brave humour, I was forced to admit, from a man facing his own imminent death. The sun had now disappeared below the edge of the hill behind us, and the air was getting chillier every moment. The water had by now completely penetrated my clothing, and unless I got warm and dry very quickly I greatly feared that the result would be a fever.

‘You seem to have won all the battles so far, Mr Browning,’ I muttered, grasping the revolver in both hands. ‘Too bad you are going to lose the war. Why did you pour this damned water over me, anyway?’

Browning suddenly looked weary, old and frightened. I think he had just realised for the first time that he was about to die. ‘What does it matter?’ he murmured, and I was glad to see that his voice trembled.

I should have liked to prolong his torment, but there was no time to lose. I steadied the butt of the gun in both hands, as we were taught in the militia, and began to pull the trigger.

It moved about a quarter of an inch, and then stopped.

‘Go on, then!’ Browning shouted. Tire, damn you!’

‘I assure you that I am most earnestly endeavouring to do so!’

I was now openly wrestling with the trigger, which had evidently been damaged when the revolver fell.

Browning smiled-horribly! — and put his hand into his pocket, and took out my travelling-pistol, and aimed it at me.

‘I’ll warrant this one works, though!’ he crowed.

My whole life seemed to swim before my eyes in that instant-a life of disappointments, of bad luck, and of hopes raised only the more ruthlessly to be crushed-and in a fit of sheer misery, frustration and despair I hurled my useless weapon to the ground.

There was a deafening report. Something whizzed through the air between Browning and me, and the revolver shot off across the marble floor under the impulse of its own recoil, fetching up under a bush in the garden. Frightened fowl rose into the dusk, squawking madly.

‘Well!’ said Browning, when the silence of the evening had settled once again, ‘I think it is high time to bring this reciprocal demonstration of incompetence to an end, and leave you to face the verdict of One who does not err. Before we part-for ever, in all probability-please answer just one question. Why, Booth? In God’s name, why?’

I hardly heard the question, for what Browning had said before had struck a chill, more piercing than any I had felt yet, clean through my sodden garments and shivering flesh to the very innermost core of my being. After scrutinising me in silence for a long time, Browning finally shrugged his shoulders.

‘If you will not speak, I cannot make you do so. Let me make it clear, however, that you have nothing to gain by your silence: you are going to the in any case, that much is virtually certain. In a few moments I shall leave, as I arrived, by the garden gate-the owners very kindly provided a key for an anonymous foreign visitor who wished to admire the celebrated view from the belvedere. That reminds me, by the way-you had best give me the key you used to get in.’

I tossed a heavy metal key at Browning’s feet. He gathered it up.

‘All exits from the grounds are securely locked, as is the villa itself, and the lodge-keeper is away until tomorrow visiting his son-in-law in the city. The night threatens to be clear and very cold-yet you apparently plan to spend it out of doors, and in wet clothing too! Most unwise, Mr Booth!’

‘What about your Christian mercy and forgiveness?’ I cried. ‘I am penitent, truly penitent! I have begun a new life, as you jested in your note. I will go away-anything-only let me live! Sweet Christ, do not murder me!’

‘Very touching, Mr Booth. I wish I could believe you. But it would make no difference. Since you once feigned an interest in my work, you will perhaps permit me to quote from one of my plays: “It is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject what you ask. Shall I proceed a-pardoning

— I who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less keep others out? No-I do trespass, but I will not double that by allowing you to trespass.” ‘

‘God rot you and your work, you hypocritical scab! I hope your wife dies in agony this very night!’ Well, that got home! Indeed, I had almost overplayed my hand-for a moment I was afraid he would shoot me in cold blood. But in the end he contented himself with spitting saliva rather than lead, turned on his heel and walked off without another word.

The sound of his footsteps receded, ever more faintly, through the garden. A distant gate opened, closed, and was locked.